Susan Carlson Fabric Collage: Student Work—Finish Line #69

With so many Olympic athletes crossing finish lines this week, I figured it was high time to share some more Finish Line quilts!

For some fabric collage artists the race is a sprint, for others it’s a marathon. It doesn’t matter which event is for you because we’re not in competition with each other, only with ourselves. If we decide to set aside a quilt for a while, that’s okay. There’s no clock running, measuring time down to the hundredth of a second.

Starting is easy—you push off the block with excitement and energy. Finishing means setting any doubts aside, giving it your best effort, sticking with it, and then calling it good and done. So let’s celebrate these artists (like Pam Sprout, whose quilt of “Hank” appears above) who have broken the tape and crossed their personal Finish Lines.

After 69 editions, our Finish Line posts show no signs of fatigue—submissions keep coming in! The first Finish Line post published in August 2016, and the fiftieth Finish Line posted almost exactly a year ago! A huge thanks to everyone who has shared their work, today and in the past five years of Finish Line posts. You’ve been an inspiration to all of us.

And to anyone who would like to join Team Fabric Collage Finish Line, click on button below for our submission page! Thank you.

Submit Quilt for "Finish Line"

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Irmi Gaut

Irmi Gaut of Scottdale, PA, sent in this cute-as-button portrait of her niece’s pup. I absolutely adore the look of a Shiba Inu, and curly-tailed dogs in general. So it makes me especially happy to see how Irma did a great job capturing the happiness of that dark-featured face, and found a perfect fabric print to create that spiraled tail. She also did very well finding fabrics that fit the scale at which she worked on Benzo—note the fabrics used for his snout, forehead, and back as well.

From Irmi:

The quilt is my niece’s dog Benzo who is a Shiba Inu. She has been out of the country for 1.5 years working on Vietnam in public health. She can’t get back to the US and then back into Vietnam due to COVID. She’s homesick and we all miss her dearly. I made this to encourage her!

I was inspired by Benzo’s friendly disposition and ornery personality. I learned fabric collage on fb following Emily Woodward Taylor’s techniques. I just stumbled across Susan’s website when looking at pet collages! I learned a lot just by reading the blog and I purchased the video on backgrounds.

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Kelly Stafford

I watched this quilt by Kelly Stafford of Prineville, OR, develop over a few months in 2020, but if it wasn’t for the pandemic, I don’t know when or if I’d ever have had the chance to meet Kelly (certainly a silver lining in a troubled year). First there were Fabric Collage Coaching sessions, then Patreon Show and Share Zoom meetings. And then I got to know Kelly even better when she attended my March 2021 Live Online Class, where she created a sweet and wonderful remembrance quilt of Roscoe the Chihuahua (click the class link to see him). Kelly has a very good sense of value and color and likes to play with her fabrics as much as I do.

From Kelly:

Cash was my very first collage. I had wanted to try pet collage for several years. The pandemic gave me the push I needed to jump in. I purchased the online master class and read and watched everything “Susan” I could find. I made mistakes—all black subject and too small but it was what was inspiring to me. At the time, I thought that making it smaller would be easier! Ha! Susan’s coaching sessions helped me tremendously; got me back on track, inspired me to keep going. I learned even more when I discovered the Thursday Night sessions and became a Patreon supporter. After Cash, I finally took Susan’s advice and did other, non-personal, subjects. I especially love making fish! Having the freedom to “color outside the lines” is really fun!

Last spring I took Susan’s online class which was fantastic. I’m anxiously awaiting her next one.

 

Cash is a rescue horse, who came to us a few years ago. He was frightened of just about everything. We have slowly gotten him to relax though still not relaxed enough to ride. My daughter, Kate, has made Cash her project. His collage includes many of the things she loves and is inspired by.

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Marianne Simpson

Marianne Simpson of Culver City, California created this spiral collage as a warm up for the Fabric Collage Online Master Class. If you haven’t heard me say this before, the spiral exercise—which is included in the Master Class or can be purchased separately in the Spiral eWorkshop—is a perfect introduction to fabric collage. It teaches the most important aspects of fabric collage: fabric choice, cutting, blending, and gluing, all in one simple and timeless design. And even better, each person’s version will be unique and eye-catching in it’s own way. Marianne’s blue and orange-yellow colors make a great contrast to each other, and the recurring red dots add that final extra touch of visual interest.

From Marianne:

I have been trying to use up my scraps and at the same time practice on how to collage. My bucket list was to take a collage class at Asilomar with Empty Spools Seminar and God willing that will happen some day. My favorite color is blue and the yellow was a good contrast. Taking pictures throughout the process helped me in fabric placement and selection. I thoroughly enjoyed this technique.

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Pam Sprout

If Pam Sprout of Fairbanks, Alaska isn’t already aware of my Live Online Classes, I need to let her know. They may be a perfect solution for her living so far from the Lower Forty-Eight. She is however, doing wonderfully on her own from what she learned from my book, and I assume my blog posts as well. Pam has created a loving portrait of her companion and therapy dog Hank, with perfect fabric choices for his fur and features. I don’t know about you, but I feel better just looking at Hank’s laughing face and sensing what it would feel like to run my own fingers through his lush fur. What a great job on this portrait, Pam, and what a great service you and Hank provide.

From Pam:

I have studied Susan’s book Serendipity Quilts, and would love to take a class, but living in Alaska has made that impossible. I started this portrait of my golden retriever Hank in 2018, but got distracted by other quilting. The thing that kept me coming back was the eyes, which Susan recommends doing first. They had turned out very well (a part of the quilt I never did change) and they kept looking at me, begging to be finished.

In June 2020, our guild, Cabin Fever Quilt Guild, sponsored our biennial show “Quilt Alaska” at Pioneer Park. The venue had been under repair for many months, and ours was the first in-person show. Still during COVID restrictions, we were concerned we would not have enough quilts, so this was my impetus to finish Hank. In addition, Hank turned 12 that month, and I wanted this to be done in his lifetime. We had fewer quilts and fewer viewers, but Hank still ended up tied with a very traditional hand-pieced quilt for the only award given, Viewers’ Choice! I was against a deadline when I got to the background so just chose a batik that suggests the birch and spruce forest in which we live. For future projects, I want to play more with the background. But I am happy with my first attempt, and attending one of Susan’s classes in Maine is still on my wish list!

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Anne Ingalls

Back in October of 2018, Anne Ingalls was able to attend one of my Maine Retreats at the Harpswell Inn. The three photos below show her progress on this fellow over the five days of class.

Anne’s portrait of this very plucky poultry specimen made me smile from the beginning. Of course, the colors she chose are fantastic, and the way she cut out the fabric shapes are fantastical— like drips of paint or melting wax that are coating his form. It all supports the feeling of movement that this rooster has things to do and places to go.

From Anne:

I like roosters! I love color. I enjoyed Susan’s class. I enjoyed the patience this took and then how relaxing it became. And it was fun to add the doo-dads on the bottom.

When I saw Anne’s title for her quilt, “Mr Cogburn,” I assumed Anne is referring to “Rooster Cogburn” of “True Grit” fame. This sent me back to my early teenage years when I read the book and watched the movie staring John Wayne as a crusty US Marshal character. Anyway, I took a short trip down memory lane by googling the movie.

As internet surfing tends to do, I came upon the question: What does True Grit mean? An answer was linked in an article, “What does it mean to have grit?” by Beverly Przystas, Michigan State University Extension – December 2, 2016. Here’s an excerpt:

A person with true grit has passion and perseverance. Goals are set and followed through. A person who works really hard to follow through on commitments has true grit.

So, getting back to the Olympics analogy at the beginning of this post—those young athletes have true grit. Anne has true grit—she followed through on her goal to finish this rooster. For that matter, to all of the artists in this post and in the 68 other Finish Line posts, you all have true grit.

Congratulations on crossing the finish line.